Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0038002 (splenomegaly)
 9,873 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

A 27-year-old man presented with a 7-month history of debilitating recurrent fever and weight loss. Extensive clinical evaluation led to the discovery of splenomegaly and retroperitoneal lymphadenopathy. The patient underwent splenectomy as well as liver and lymph node biopsy. Histologic examination of the lymph nodes, but not the liver and spleen, revealed inflammatory pseudotumor of lymph nodes. The patient has remained asymptomatic for more than 3 years following the surgical procedure despite the absence of further intervention. Inflammatory pseudotumor of lymph nodes should be considered in the differential evaluation of prolonged or relapsing fever of unknown etiology.
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PMID:Inflammatory pseudotumor of intra-abdominal lymph nodes manifesting as recurrent fever of unknown origin: a case report. 201 94

Between October 1985 and September 1986, 488 children aged less than 15 years, 45 pregnant women, 21 other women and 18 men with tick-borne relapsing fever (TBRF) were seen at Mvumi Hospital, Central Tanzania. 88% of the children were less than 5 years old and 36% were less than 1 year. Twelve children were less than 1 month old and some of the 10 infants diagnosed at between 4 and 12 days of age were cases of congenital infection. The clinical features of TBRF in the children and pregnant women were compared with 129 children with a similar age distribution and 52 pregnant women, respectively, who had blood smears positive for malaria but negative for spirochaetes. The common presenting features in children with TBRF were a high fever, splenomegaly, convulsions, and meningism. The difficulty of differentiation from malaria is described. Severe disease in both children and adults was associated with high density of spirochaetes in blood smears. Of the 45 infected pregnant women, 22 (49%) went into labour. One of the deliveries was an abortion and 10 were preterm infants, 4 of whom died. There were no maternal deaths. The estimated overall mortality for children was 1.6%, and 2.3% for those aged less than 1 years; for the 95 children admitted it was 8.4%. Penicillin was a satisfactory treatment for all ages, with a relapse rate of 4.7%. Recommendations for patient management are given.
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PMID:Tick-borne relapsing fever in central Tanzania. 209 23

Some 30 cases of tick-borne relapsing fever due to Borrelia are known to have occurred between 1965 and 1978 in the Pacific Northwest. This disease was found more frequently in young men with a history of wilderness exposure during the summer months. Recurrent fever was the most common symptom with temperatures reaching higher than 39.5 degrees C (103.1 degrees F) in all cases, and many patients had three or more febrile episodes. Splenomegaly was the second most common finding reported. Diagnosis of relapsing fever was made in 20 cases by identifying spirochetes on peripheral blood smears. In ten remaining cases the diagnosis was made on clinical and epidemiologic grounds.Information regarding therapy was available in 21 cases. Ten patients received a tetracycline drug and all had a prompt response without relapse. Two of the patients died, a 68-year-old woman with possible myocardial involvement and a newborn infant with infection acquired in utero and meningeal involvement. The diagnosis was often delayed in spite of outpatient evaluation and admittance to hospital, probably because borreliosis was not considered in the differential diagnosis. Because tick-borne relapsing fever is eventually a self-limited disease in most patients, it is probably not recognized often enough. Awareness of this disease and examination of the peripheral blood smear for spirochetes will lead to earlier diagnosis. Prompt initiation of tetracycline therapy should reduce morbidity associated with borreliosis.
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PMID:Tick-borne relapsing fever in the Pacific Northwest: an underdiagnosed illness? 741 71

An outbreak of louse-borne relapsing fever, caused by the return to their original recruitment areas of soldiers at the end of 30 years of fighting in northern Ethiopia, was reported in the Arsi region. We studied 103 infants and children with louse-borne relapsing fever who were admitted to Asella Hospital between 1 May 1991 and 30 April 1992. Twenty-one per cent of the patients had a clear history of contact with sick ex-soldiers; 42% were students admitted to the hospital following the re-opening of schools after the summer vacation. The common clinical features of the disease were fever in 100%, headache in 84.5%, chills in 74%, abdominal pain in 51%, epistaxis in 20%, hepatomegaly in 26%, splenomegaly in 14%, petechial rash in 34% and jaundice in 10%. Differences in symptoms and signs according to age are described. Observed complications were pneumonia in 14% and central nervous system involvement in 10%. Four children went into deep coma, and two of them died. Severe disease was associated with a high density of spirochaetes in blood smears. Patients were treated with two low doses of penicillin or one dose of penicillin followed by, according to age, chloramphenicol or tetracycline, and with intravenous fluids. The case fatality rate was 1.9%. Jarisch-Herxheimer reactions occurred in 61% of patients. There were relapses in 2.9% of treated patients.
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PMID:Louse-borne relapsing fever in Ethiopian children: a clinical study. 768 13

Clinical signs and haematological abnormalities of haemophagocytic syndrome of unknown origin are described for a male, nine-year-old rottweiler referred because of weakness, depression, mild weight loss and relapsing fever. Mucous membranes were pale and the spleen was enlarged. Ultrasonography revealed diffuse irregular structures in the enlarged spleen, and cytological examination of multiple fine needle aspirates of the spleen demonstrated extramedullary haematopoiesis. Haematological examination revealed pancytopenia and disseminated intravascular coagulation. A bone marrow smear contained numerous marrow macrophages with a cytologically benign appearance, containing phagocytosed haematopoietic cells. The dog died one week after referral. The differential diagnosis is discussed.
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PMID:Haemophagocytic syndrome with disseminated intravascular coagulation in a dog. 957 64

The role of the plasminogen activation system (PAS) was investigated during the course of infection of a relapsing fever Borrelia species in plasminogen-deficient (plg -/-) and control (plg +/+ and plg +/-) mice. Subcutaneous inoculation of 10(4) spirochetes resulted in a peak spirochetemia five days after infection with 20-23 x 10(6) organisms per milliliter of whole blood in all mice, indicating that the PAS had no effect on the development of this phase of the infection. Anemia, thrombocytopenia, hepatitis, carditis, and splenomegaly were noted in all mice during and immediately after peak spirochetemia. Fibrin deposition in organs was noted in plg -/- mice but not in controls during these stages. Significantly greater spirochetal DNA burdens were consistently observed in the hearts and brains of control mice 28-30 days after infection, as determined by PCR amplification of this organism's flagellin gene (flaB), followed by quantitative densitometry. Furthermore, the decreased spirochetal load in brains of plg -/- mice was associated with a significant decrease in the degree of inflammation of the leptomeninges in these mice. These findings indicate a role for the PAS in heart and brain invasion by relapsing fever Borrelia, resulting in organ injury.
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PMID:The plasminogen activation system enhances brain and heart invasion in murine relapsing fever borreliosis. 988 37

Thrombocytopenia is common in persons infected with relapsing fever Borreliae. We previously showed that the relapsing fever spirochete Borrelia hermsii binds to and activates human platelets in vitro and that, after platelet activation, high-level spirochete-platelet attachment is mediated by integrin alpha IIb beta 3, a receptor that requires platelet activation for full function. Here we established that B hermsii infection of the mouse results in severe thrombocytopenia and a functional defect in hemostasis caused by accelerated platelet loss. Disseminated intravascular coagulation, immune thrombocytopenic purpura, or splenic sequestration did not play a discernible role in this model. Instead, spirochete-platelet complexes were detected in the blood of infected mice, suggesting that platelet attachment by bacteria might result in platelet clearance. Consistent with this, splenomegaly and thrombocytopenia temporally correlated with spirochetemia, and the severity of thrombocytopenia directly correlated with the degree of spirochetemia. Activation of platelets and integrin alpha IIb beta 3 were apparently not required for bacterium-platelet binding or platelet clearance because the bacterium-bound platelets in the circulation were not activated, and platelet binding and thrombocytopenia during infection of beta 3-deficient and wild-type mice were indistinguishable. These findings suggest that thrombocytopenia of relapsing fever is the result of platelet clearance after beta 3-independent bacterial attachment to circulating platelets.
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PMID:Spirochete-platelet attachment and thrombocytopenia in murine relapsing fever borreliosis. 1285 86

An HIV-positive man from Somalia presented with severe malaise, weight loss, relapsing fever, lymphadenopathy and splenomegaly. An FDG-PET-scan-guided lymph node biopsy revealed the characteristic histological features of the plasma cell variant of Castleman's disease. A high HHV-8 viral load was detected in the serum (7980 copies/ml). Treatment with HAART, rituximab and vinblastine resulted in a full and rapid recovery and lowered HHV-8 viral load to undetectable levels.
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PMID:Vinblastine, rituximab and HAART, treatment of an HIV -positive patient with multicentric Castleman's disease. 2016 61